Important Dates
- PhD Colloquium deadline for submissions: May 2, 2025
- PhD Colloquium notification of acceptance: June 2, 2025
- PhD Colloquium revised version: July 31, 2025
Aim
The overall aim of the PhD colloquium is to connect PhD students to the e-government research community. During the colloquium, you will meet other PhD students, young researchers who have just finished their PhDs, and experienced scholars. The colloquium will host 6-8 students and 6-8 faculty members. The initial e-government network of students and faculty that the colloquium provides will serve you well during the main conference – and hopefully in the years to come. The colloquium aims to establish a nice and comfortable environment, where you will feel welcome and free to not only present and receive feedback on your research, but also to address a wider range of questions concerning your PhD experience overall. Apart from offering feedback on your research questions, related work, theory, methods, and results, the colloquium also aims to stimulate reflections on your motivation, research perspective, and future implications of your work for practice and research.
Participation Method
The PhD colloquium is highly interactive. You will not present your own research, contrary to what is normal at most research conferences. Another PhD student will present your paper and students will have prepared questions for the presentation of your work. In this way, you will learn how your written work is perceived by others and hopefully you will see your work from new perspectives – or, where it needs to be clarified. Furthermore, at least one faculty member will be especially appointed to comment on your paper. This presentation format ensures a high level of engagement among students and faculty. The colloquium will furthermore include a social dinner, which is free of charge for participants.
Participants in the PhD Colloquium are furthermore invited to and expected to participate in the Junior Faculty School on 2 September – see more info here (Junior Faculty School).
Target Audience
We welcome all PhD students within the wider field of information and communication technologies in the public sector. Ideally, student participants will have completed one or two years of doctoral study or progressed far enough in their research to have a structured proposal idea and some preliminary findings, but not reached the stage of defending their dissertations. We expect that students at this stage of study will gain the most value from feedback on their work.
Requirements for submissions
a) a research paper that describes your dissertation research,
b) a short CV,
c) a personal statement, and
d) proof of enrollment in a PhD Program
e) a request for travel expense-related stipends (optional)
The research paper should follow the ongoing research paper template (see submission information for the conference in general), be single-authored and not exceed 8 pages in total. The CV and personal statement should not exceed two pages. There is no formal format for b and c. The four or five documents must be merged into one PDF file in the order a, b, c, d, e, before uploading it to the conference management system.
a) The paper content follows a generic doctoral thesis structure, including abstract, keywords, introduction with research question, related work, theory, methodology, and preliminary results. To make this colloquium most beneficial for the remaining work on your PhD, we want you to extend your methodology and results sections. In the methodology section, we ask you to elaborate on your motivation, perspective, philosophy, research design, data collection techniques, and analytical framework. In the results section, we ask you to present your preliminary results but furthermore, elaborate on the future impact of your results on practice (for instance recommendations for public sector practitioners) and on research (for instance disclosure of needs for new research areas). We recommend allocating 4 pages to abstract, keywords, introduction, related work and theory and 4 pages to methodology and preliminary results.
b) A brief personal CV of your prior education, work experiences, personal interests, leisure time activities, family status, etc. The CV is aimed to facilitate curiosity and informal contact with other colloquium participants.
c) The personal statement (approx. 1 page) should include your research motivation, your personal stances related to your research and the future achievements that you hope to realize, whether it’s within research, teaching, industry, an NGO, etc. This could also include your vision of future global work. Furthermore, your statement should include 2-3 specific questions that you want the colloquium participants to focus on during the presentation of your research.
d) The request for travel expense-related stipends should include a letter of motivation explaining why you need a stipend and what costs need to be covered, for instance expenses with hotel and approximate flight costs (up to €1500 for applicants outside Europe, and €750 for applicants within Europe).
Application Process
The application to participate is done through the main conference website in the Easy Chair conference management system (see submission information for the conference in general).
Your submission will be reviewed by the chairs of the doctoral colloquium and may have to be revised according to review comments before final acceptance. On acceptance, you will receive further instructions for preparing the final version of the paper, for the PhD colloquium, and the draft program. The accepted papers at the PhD Colloquium will not be published in the conference proceedings. If you would like that we recommended that you also submit a poster or an ongoing research paper to the main conference.
Admission and benefits
The PhD Colloquium chairs admit participants to the doctoral colloquium based on their submitted research proposal/contribution. Admitted doctoral students are required to make academic contributions to the doctoral colloquium (no sit-ins only). Admitted doctoral students are also required to make service contributions to the overall conference organization (typically in the amount of four hours per student, for example, for staffing the reception desk, taking pictures, or by helping with other aspects of the conference organization). Upon admission as a doctoral student to participate in the colloquium, the conference organization will in return:
- Waive the conference registration fee (exception: the registration fee will not be waived if an admitted doctoral student is the ONLY registered author of a full research paper accepted for the conference Springer proceedings)
- Fully cover the expenses for attending the colloquium dinner
- Fully cover the expenses for attending the Junior Faculty School
- Fully cover the expenses for attending the conference dinner
PhD Colloquium Organizers and Chairs
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- J. Ramon Gil-Garcia, University at Albany, SUNY, USA (email: jgil-garcia@ctg.albany.edu)
- Gabriela Viale Pereira (lead), Danube University Krems, Austria (email: gabriela.viale-pereira@donau-uni.ac.at)